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Ethnologue: Languages of the World
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Ethnologue > Web version > Country index > Asia > Sri Lanka

Languages of Sri Lanka

See language map.
Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka Prajathanthrika Samajavadi Janarajaya. Formerly Ceylon. 19,121,000. National or official languages: Sinhala, Tamil. Literacy rate: 92%–96%. Information mainly from J. Gair 1990; J. Holm 1989. Blind population: 13,800. Deaf population: 3,459 to 1,093,340 (1998). Deaf institutions: 14. The number of individual languages listed for Sri Lanka is 7. Of those, all are living languages.
English

[eng] 10,000 (Crystal 2005).  Classification: Indo-European, Germanic, West, English 
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Indo-Portuguese

[idb] 30 in Sri Lanka (1992 P. Baker). No monolinguals. Ethnic population: 3,406. Trincomalee, Batticaloa. Classification: Creole, Portuguese based 
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Sinhala

[sin] 15,500,000 in Sri Lanka (2007). Population total all countries: 15,568,750. Widespread in Sri Lanka except some districts in the north, east, and center. Also in Canada, Libya, Maldives, Singapore, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United States. Alternate names: Cingalese, Singhala, Singhalese, Sinhalese.  Dialects: Rodiya. There is a great difference between the literary and the colloquial language. The Rodiya dialect is spoken by low caste Rodiya people.  Classification: Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Indo-Aryan, Sinhalese-Maldivian 
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Sri Lankan Creole Malay

[sci] 46,000 (Ansaldo and Lim 2006), decreasing. Especially the cities of Colombo, Kandy, Badulla, Hambantota, Kirinda. Alternate names: Java Jati, Melayu Bahasa, Sri Lankan Malay.  Dialects: Not intelligible with Standard Malay [zsm] because of phonological and syntactic differences, and strong influence from Tamil [tam]. May be similar to Malaccan Creole Malay [ccm] (Lim 1981).  Classification: Creole, Malay based 
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Sri Lankan Sign Language

[sqs] 12,800 deaf persons (Van Cleve 1986).  Classification: Deaf sign language 
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Tamil

[tam] 3,770,000 in Sri Lanka (2007). North and northeast coasts, a few pockets in the south. Classification: Dravidian, Southern, Tamil-Kannada, Tamil-Kodagu, Tamil-Malayalam, Tamil 
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Veddah

[ved] 300 (Johnstone 1993). Ethnic population: 2,500 (2002). Eastern mountains, Badulla and Polonnaruwa districts. Alternate names: Beda, Bedda, Vaedda, Veda, Veddha, Weda, Weddo.  Classification: Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Indo-Aryan, Sinhalese-Maldivian 
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